Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.

Friday, September 01, 2006

NEWS ROUNDUP

Idaho rancher suspects wolves after 158 sheep go missing An Idaho rancher said 34 lambs and ewes were killed by wolves and he's missing another 124 sheep he fears also fell victim to the predators. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has authorized federal trappers to shoot two wolves. They're part of a new pack that may be establishing itself in a rugged, mountainous area of spruce and red fir just southeast of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. Rancher Ron Shirts, a 39-year-old Weiser resident, says he began finding dead sheep from his flock of 2,500 starting August 26th. He says, "the killing had to have gone on for a long time."....Burning Man Turns 20 TWENTY YEARS AGO, a pair of San Francisco bohemians, Larry Harvey and Jerry James, burned a handmade wooden effigy on San Francisco's Baker Beach. That simple gesture, through word of mouth, attracted more participants in following years, and by 1990 the crowds pushed it off the beach and out to the Nevada desert. It developed into a seasonal settlement of 40,000 or so, known as Black Rock City. For one week each year, Burning Man becomes the most quintessentially American city in America. The city, dedicated loosely to art, community and general post-Merry Prankster high jinks, gets built, lived in, and then disappears the week before Labor Day in the Black Rock Desert playa, a dry lake bed 100 miles from the nearest "real" city, Reno. The week of fun ends each year with a giant bonfire of an elaborate, 40-foot-tall wooden man, in a ceremony that means whatever you want it to. Burning Man is like a theme park, but where the customers build the rides. It's like an arts festival, but with no plaques telling you what anything is or who built it. It's like a giant party, but held in a godforsaken wasteland no rational person would ever otherwise choose to be....Sheriff: Death of man at Burning Man apparently natural causes A man collapsed and died apparently of natural causes on Tuesday at the Burning Man counterculture festival in the desert about 100 miles north of Reno, authorities said Thursday. The man in his late 30s or early 40s was from out of state. He's been identified but his name has not been released pending notification of family, Pershing County Sheriff Ron Skinner said. "At this time, we believe he died of natural causes," Skinner said. He said the death remains under investigation. Medics responded when the man collapsed at a camp site during daylight on Tuesday but could not resuscitate him and he was pronounced dead at the scene, said JoLynn Worley, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which manages the land that is home to the festival.... Litigation dropped before they go to trial A lawsuit filed in 2005 by a Lincoln County couple who accused U.S. Forest Service officials of negligence after their home burned, is scheduled to be dismissed with prejudice. Albert and Loretta Sanchez sued a year ago after their home was destroyed by The Lookout Fire ignited on the Cibola National Forest at the northern border of the county on May 21, 2004. They valued the ranch house at $338,070. The suit claimed at the time of the incident, the fire danger level was extreme, but the agency failed to properly man a fire lookout in the area or to call in the proper firefighting resources. In a joint motion filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, the couple and U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, representing the Forest Service and U.S. Department of Agriculture, asked that the suit be dismissed with prejudice.... Mont. wildfire grows; destroys 20 houses A wildfire has burned 20 houses and 15 other buildings and continued to spread in southern Montana, officials said Thursday. The wildfire was about 156,000 acres, or about 244 square miles. Fire officials had issued evacuation orders for about 500 homes in Stillwater and Sweet Grass counties. Two private bridges across the Stillwater River also were destroyed. Authorities said they didn't know when people would be able to return to their homes. Numerous risks remained, including downed power lines and burned trees that could fall at any time. "I know you want to get into your homes," said Stillwater County Undersheriff Woody Claunch. "I want you there, too. But it's my responsibility to keep you safe." Officials were bringing in the National Guard to staff road blocks.... Neglected Vows Cited at BLM The Bureau of Land Management has neglected its public commitments to monitor and limit harm to wildlife and air quality from natural gas drilling in western Wyoming, according to an internal BLM assessment. In the Pinedale, Wyo., field office of the BLM, which oversees one of the most productive and profitable gas fields on public land in the West, there is often "no evaluation, analysis or compiling" of data tracking the environmental consequences of drilling, according to the document, which was written in May and which BLM officials confirm is genuine. The BLM in Pinedale has failed for six years to honor its commitments to track pollution that affects air quality and lake acidification in nearby wilderness areas, the document says. In the years that the agency was not tracking emissions, the level of nitrous oxides in the Pinedale area exceeded limits that the BLM had publicly agreed might have an "adverse impact" on air quality, according to the internal assessment. Nitrous oxides, from gas-field engine exhaust and the burning of waste gas, are a primary cause of the ground-level ozone that has reduced air quality in the high sage plains of western Wyoming, a region that until recently had one of the most pristine airsheds in the West....US regulators propose new pipeline safety rules U.S. pipeline regulators on Thursday proposed new rules aimed at preventing the kind of runaway corrosion that plagued pipelines at the huge Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska, which are now exempt from oversight. Current U.S. pipeline regulations do not include the 22-mile (35.4 km) line operated by BP Plc (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) that leaked oil onto the Arctic tundra, spurring a shutdown of about half the capacity of the 400,000 barrel-per-day field, the nation's biggest. That's because low-stress lines like BP's Prudhoe Bay network -- ones that run at less than 20 percent of their rated capacity and are sited away from population centers -- are deemed to be less risky than high-pressure lines. The new proposal would bring new federal oversight over about 1,283 miles (2,064 km) of such lines, including BP's (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) Prudhoe Bay lines. That's about 19 percent of the 6,722 miles (10,816 km) of low-stress lines on the U.S. pipeline network....TXU plans to build nuclear plants Electric utility TXU Corp. said Thursday it plans to build nuclear reactors at up to three sites to meet growing electricity demand in Texas beginning late in the next decade, an indication that nuclear energy could undergo a revival in the United States. The company said it expects to submit applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2008 to build and operate the plants, which would likely begin operating between 2015 and 2020. TXU said nuclear power is currently more costly than other fuels, but it believes it can shave 30 to 40 percent off capital costs as nuclear technology improves. By applying to the NRC before the end of 2008, TXU expects to get $6 billion in tax credits, nuclear risk insurance and federal loan guarantees approved by Congress in last year's energy law. The company estimated it would cost $50 million to $150 million to prepare the applications. Chairman and Chief Executive C. John Wilder said nuclear reactors could provide lower-priced, low-emissions sources of power that would reduce Texas' reliance on natural gas.... Texas mayors form group to fight new coal units Mayors from 17 Texas cities, citing poor air quality across the state, vowed on Thursday to fight construction of more than a dozen coal-fired power plants unless regulators consider all options that could lead to cleaner air. The group, Texas Cities for Clean Air Coalition, which includes mayors from Houston and Dallas, said it planned to intervene in the coal-plant permitting process and named law firm Susman Godfrey LLP of Houston to lead the fight. The primary target is TXU Corp., which wants to build 11 coal units at nine existing power-plant sites while promising to reduce overall air emissions by 20 percent. State regulators need to examine all available methods to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon and mercury, Houston Mayor Bill White said at a press conference at city hall....EPA Official Promises Guidelines to Define Wetlands The Bush administration is preparing instructions for regulators puzzling over which wetlands are covered by federal clean water law, a top Environmental Protection Agency official said Wednesday. But the EPA hasn't decided whether to issue a comprehensive regulation on the issue in the wake of a confusing U.S. Supreme Court ruling in two Michigan wetlands cases, said Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator for water. "Our overarching goal is to continue to protect wetlands under the Clean Water Act to the maximum extent allowable since the decision," Grumbles told The Associated Press in an interview. "Which tools are the best to use is a policy decision we haven't made yet." The high court took up the Michigan cases in hopes of settling a long-running debate concerning federal jurisdiction over wetlands. But the June 19 decision muddied the waters further. The justices split three ways, with none of their five written opinions drawing majority support. Several urged Congress or federal agencies to deal with the issue, saying they were best suited to handle its complexities. Courts have agreed the Clean Water Act requires permits to degrade wetlands alongside navigable waterways such as lakes and rivers. The question is whether the law also applies to tributaries of those waters and their adjacent wetlands — and if so, how far upstream....Oil fuels environmentalists' hopes Renewed worries about offshore oil drilling and effluent dumping off the Central California coast are reviving hopes of extending the southern boundary of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary to protect waters off San Luis Obispo County. Environmentalists, working with the Chamber of Commerce, hope to generate enough enthusiasm for the idea to persuade the county board of supervisors this fall to seek congressional action adding more than 40 miles of coastline to the existing sanctuary. If enacted, it would mean that the sanctuary would extend more than 300 miles from Marin to Point Sal State Park, covering over a third of the state’s coastline. Marine sanctuaries are off limits to oil and gas development and dumping but not commercial and sport fishing. A marine sanctuary off the San Luis Obispo coast has been under consideration virtually since the Monterey Bay sanctuary was created in 1992. It has not had the political support to move ahead....New Report Warns Against Expansive New Regulation of 'Invasive Species' Calls by some federal lawmakers to add burdensome new regulations to quarantine, to control or to kill so-called 'invasive species' are of dubious environmental value and represent a real threat to property owners, says a new report released by The National Center for Public Policy Research. According to Dana Joel Gattuso, senior fellow at the National Center and author of the study, efforts on Capitol Hill to regulate non-native species -- plants or animals that are considered by some to be alien to a particular ecosystem -- is based more on "emotion rather than science.” Gattuso argues that adding new invasive species regulations would be a disaster for sound scientific practices and would require massive expansion of government regulatory control on land. The study, "Invasive Species: Animal, Vegetable or Political?," argues that most non-native species are not an environmental calamity but, in fact, adapt to their surroundings and are even useful for ecosystems, the environment, human health and industry. "In spite of the fact that most non-native species are harmless, lawmakers are reacting to hype and exaggerations," writes Gattuso. "[T]here is no scientific evidence of actual global extinction caused by a non-native species. Nor do exotic species threaten species 'richness' or 'biodiversity.'"....go here to view the study.Canadian BSE Case May Indicate Testing Regimes Are Missing Infections The 50-month-old dairy cow dairy cow found on a farm in Alberta evidently showed prion development months earlier than could have been expected, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency report on its investigation of the case. "The staining pattern from the confirmatory IHC tests supported the notion that this animal seemed to have been detected at an earlier stage of BSE incubation," the report states. "Had the animal succumbed to BSE and not to an unrelated disease, it may have been some time before BSE symptoms would have been noted." USDA and other experts have contended that prion formation dangerous to humans takes place only shortly before the onset of BSE symptoms, and USDA has concentrated until very recently on animals exhibiting symptoms of BSE and elderly cattle most likely to have the disease. Bill Bullard, chief executive of Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, charges that the discovery upsets the apple cart of traditional scientific thinking about the disease. "The revelation that a rapid BSE test can detect infected animals up to eight months before the animal would have fit the criteria for targeted testing is not only new news, but groundbreaking news," he said in a statement....A step back in time With a "Heeup" and a "Ho," the four-horse team dug hooves into the ground, strained against the squeaking harnesses and pulled the rack of hay to the top of the stacker, dropping the hay into the wire-framed cage. For a history group from Chugwater, Wyo., a trip to Don Licking's ranch north of North Platte became a trip back in time. Licking uses his Belgian draft horses to feed and hay his cattle, cut his hay and stack it, and on Thursday, he hosted a demonstration for 30 people who wanted to see how the equipment worked....Kodiak a cow town? In the summer of 1951 Alaska was still a territory, and in Kodiak, where the city government’s budget was $120,000, gravel streets were the norm and grocers, cannery mess halls and the Navy base at Womens Bay all relied on local ranchers for beef. That summer, rancher Tom Nelson announced he would host Kodiak’s first rodeo on his spread at Kalsin Bay. The event was held the first Sunday of August and billed as the first rodeo in Alaska. “John Gibbons ran it, and he was one hell of a cowboy,” 89-year-old Norman Sutliff recalled. “It was a regulation-sized rodeo grounds with a squeeze chute and a gate. We put it all up in one day.”....